


hold back the river

by deathlytireddan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 04:38:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12646257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathlytireddan/pseuds/deathlytireddan
Summary: Not when Dan just wants to distract Phil and not have to talk, not when Phil desperately, too desperately, wants Dan. Wants him in Phil’s arms, where Phil can protect him. Wants him wrapped in blankets and eating a hot meal, where he’s taken care of.-The 2009 skype fic that’s set after they’ve met.





	hold back the river

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics inside from Hold Back The River by James Bay
> 
> Warnings: Angst, Brief Strong Language, Implied Bullying, Mild Injuries
> 
> While writing this I had the thought that they must’ve never gotten enough of touching each other in those early days. Even now, they’re always in each other’s space. 
> 
> Enjoy!

_Tried to keep you close to me_   
_But life got in-between_

The call takes a long second to connect. Phil waits, wonders what he’ll say. What he can even say.

(“Dan!”

The phone call sounds odd, as if Dan is walking in the wind.

“Hey,” Dan says. His voice sounds muffled, choked off.

“Dan-“ Phil hesitates. Frowns. “Are you okay?”

There’s a long silence. Phil wonders if Dan is constructing a lie, a cover up-

“Not really.” He laughs. Not a good one. Not a happy Phil-hi-hi-how-are-you-hi-you’re-here laugh. “People are horrible, aren’t they?”

“Dan-“

“Like-“ Dan’s voices goes low. “Like, I didn’t do anything. I never do anything.”

The sound of wind has stopped, at least. That means Dan is inside, right? “Dan, are you safe?”

“I’m in my kitchen. You can take painkillers without food, right?”

Phil freezes. “Dan. What happened? Tell me. Please.”

“I-I’m sorry, Phil. I got beat up, I’spose. More than usual.” He hisses through his teeth, a crackly sound that makes Phil’s own teeth hurt. “Ow, cold, cold ice.”

Phil knows this happens, sometimes. It happens with a lot of people. It’s happened to him. But he always thinks of it more in the past tense.

“Eat a few crackers with the painkillers, at least,” he says, standing and pacing his room. “They can make you sick.”

“Okay.”

Phil hears him move around, the creak of a door or a floor, and then the sound of Dan chewing. It’s strangely comforting.

Phil paces in silence, listens as Dan makes a disgusted noise after he swallows the painkillers.

“I’m going to take a nap now, Phil. I don’t know why I called. I’m sorry.” He sounds choked up again.

“Don’t be sorry!” Phil insists. “Call or text or skype me when you wake up, please?”

“I will. Sorry.”)

_Hold back the river, let me look in your eyes_

The call connects.

There’s a bruise under Dan’s eye. Purple and blue and black mixing together into a pixelated monster.

Phil bites his nail, something he stopped doing years ago.

Dan tilts his head down, keeping the bruise hidden. He’s wearing a shirt, but the loose material slips and exposes a hint of something dark and messy on his shoulder.

“Dan,” Phil hisses, eyes caught on the messy dark spot and unable to look away.

Dan pulls his shirt up and shrugs his shoulders. Uncomfortable.

Phil winces.

They haven’t said hello. Dan’s eyes look sleepy and unfocused. Normally it would make Phil’s heart flip and flip again. It still does, just for less than good reasons.

Dan had told him this used to happen when he was younger. But not now, not anymore. Not when Phil is hours and minutes away, unable to do anything.

He said he never told his parents either. Never bothered. Never wanted to be an inconvenience. He’s a such a stupid teenager sometimes.

Still, Phil isn’t going to bring that up right now. It’s late, and Dan looks like he needs a hug more than he needs a reprimand.

“Did the painkillers work?” Phil asks finally.

Dan nods slowly, fingers probing under his eye. “They always take forever, but yeah.”

Phil files that information away, just in case.

He takes a breath. He’s going to be a supportive, if long distance, boyfriend. They’d decided that the first time they met, not so long ago.

It’s late, but he turns the dimmer on his light all the way up and scoots up the bed, resting his laptop on his thighs.

_Hold back the river, so I_   
_Can stop time for a minute and see where you hide_

“Talk to me.”

Dan is still pushing his fingers into the bruise and looking at himself in the screen. “Just some lads from town. Reading, not Wokingham.”

He finally stops messing with the bruise and looks at Phil stubbornly. “I wasn’t doing anything to them!”

“I didn’t think you were.” Phil frowns. Dan sounds annoyed suddenly. “Did someone ever think you were?”

He shouldn’t be asking that, he should be asking when and why and where exactly it happened, so he can climb on a train and find whoever did it himself. The force and the aggression behind those thoughts surprise him.

He completely means them.

Dan looks so small, despite being just as large as Phil. His shoulders are shrunk down and his blanket is slowly creeping further up his body, nervous, tanned fingers gripping it.

_Tried to square not being there_   
_But it’s there that I should’ve been_

“Did you drink water with the medicine?” Phil asks, trying to sound kind and worried. It isn’t hard.

“Yes, mum.” Dan smiles a little. “And all my crackers. And a banana before I called you.”

“Good, son.”

Dan makes a face, nose crinkling and dimple caving in. “I don’t like that at all.”

“Not even a little?” Phil winks horribly, on purpose. His chest warms at Dan’s sudden laugh, and wraps around itself when Dan stops suddenly, hand pressing his side somewhere below the camera.

They watch each other. Phil wants to push himself through the screen and hug him.

Dan pushes the laptop off his legs and lifts the shirt. Phil can’t see it, the angle is wrong, but the wrinkle that forms between Dan’s eyebrows is enough.

“Do you have anything for it?” He doesn’t really know what you’re supposed to put on bruises.

“Yeah.” Dan sounds unconvinced.

“Ice, at least?”

“I don’t want to walk downstairs.” Dan’s voice is small again.

Because it hurts, Phil thinks. “That’s alright. I won’t force you.”

Dan’s mouth goes up. “How would you force me?”

“My mum powers.”

Dan makes a face again. His eyebrows move in funny, unnatural directions. “That sounds like the most horrible thing in the world!”

“Then don’t anger me!” Phil adopts a stern expression, nose pointed in the air. “I’ll lock you in your room!”

Dan smirks, head tilting down. Phil’s stomach drops. “What will we do in the room?”

No. Not right now. Not when Dan just wants to distract Phil and not have to talk, not when Phil desperately, too desperately, wants Dan. Wants him in Phil’s arms, where Phil can protect him. Wants him wrapped in blankets and eating a hot meal, where he’s taken care of.

“I’ll never let go of you,” Phil whispers.

Dan’s eyes widen, cheeks tinting pink and lips parting. “Phil-“

“When I actually can, I mean. I’m-I’m sorry you were hurt by those fucking worthless aresholes. You deserve the world. I wish I knew how to make the world nice to you.”

Phil doesn’t breath.

Dan’s eyes widen. He bites his lip, hand reaching up-

He disconnects the call.   
  
The air punches out of Phil. It was too much, or it wasn’t enough. Whatever it was wasn’t what Dan wanted. Needed.

He takes a deep breath, feels a lump in his throat start to suffocate him.

_Once upon a different life_   
_We rode our bikes into the sky_   
_But now we’re caught against the tide_   
_Those distant days all flashin’ by_

Dan calls again.

Phil answers, stares at Dan wordlessly.

“I’m sorry,” Dan sniffs, wipes his eyes and licks salt off his mouth. “I-I didn’t know what to say.”

“It’s okay,” Phil breathes. Relief pools in his eyes. He swallows the fear in his throat and sits up straighter. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not!” Dan uses his shirt collar to wipe under his eyes, sniffs and bites his trembling lip. “I’m useless.”

“You aren’t useless.” Phil is surprised by the anger in his voice. Dan flinches. “You aren’t useless to me.”

A tear runs over his bruise. “Thanks, Phil. I mean it. Thank you.”

_Lonely water_   
_Won’t you let us wander_   
_Let us hold each other_

Phil opens his mouth but Dan beats him to it.

“You don’t know what you’ve done for me,” Dan says, voice tight and carefully controlled. “You don’t at all.”

Phil sighs. “Don’t give me all the credit. You’re amazing. AmazingDan.”

He doesn’t know how to make Dan believe this, to make him understand how lonely and small Phil felt before. Like a little blip in a stupidly big universe.

“You’re better than me.”

“Agree to disagree?”

Dan laughs wetly. “Okay.”

-

_Hold back the river, let me look in your eyes_

Dan is resting his chin on his sweater-paw hand. His eyes are warm and dark chocolate, looking at Phil and no one else.

Phil’s cheeks pink. “Stop watching me!” He demands, nudging Dan under the table. Even now, that gives him a thrill. He wants to yell out his window that Dan Howell, his Dan Howell, is here.

In his reach, whenever he wants.

Dan nudges him back, smile widening into a dimple-smile and a laugh joining it. Phil giggles, tongue stuck between his teeth.

“I love you, you know,” Dan says. Suddenly and not, because it’s there all the time.

“I love you too.” Phil ignores the mostly empty Starbucks around them. It’s night time, in a quieter part of London.

“Good. I’m glad you aren’t dumping me.” Dan nudges him again and licks whipped cream off his hot chocolate.

“Now that you mention it...”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Fuck off, you aren’t dumping me.” He says it confidently, fondly, eyes laughter-wet and shining.

“I guess it’s too late.”

Phil winks. Dan digs his shoe into the bone in Phil’s leg. “We have talked about that! No! Bad Phil.”

_Hold back the river, so I_   
_Can stop for a minute and be by your side_

He’s laughing again.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I purposely wrote the ending to fit in with any year, any Starbucks. It could be 2013 or 2017. The year doesn’t really matter.
> 
> I hope you liked it! Leave a comment? 
> 
> [my tumblr](https://nostalgiclondon.tumblr.com)


End file.
